Not so Confounding

Andrew Sullivan recently wrote the following:

A confounding finding from Gallup:

After analyzing survey data representing more than 90% of the global Muslim population, Gallup found that despite widespread anti-American sentiment, only a small minority saw the 9/11 attacks as morally justified. Even more significant, there was no correlation between level of religiosity and extremism among respondents. Among the 7% of the population that fits in the politically radicalized category -- those who saw the 9/11 attacks as completely justifiable and have an unfavorable view of the United States -- 94% said religion is an important part of their daily lives, compared with 90% among those in the moderate majority. And no significant difference exists between radicals and moderates in mosque attendance.

Not sure what to make of that. Maybe it's grist for Ron Paul. Some Pollster.com analysis here.

Andrew shouldn't be so puzzled. It's actually pretty simple: Being pious--'fundamentalist'  to put a negative name to it--has really very little correlation with being 'militant.'   As the poll suggests, the vast majority of fundamentalists reject militancy.  It's probably the same in any religion.

One of the smartest people to write about terrorism, Marc Sageman, made just this point in his book Understanding Terror Networks. He wrote, “Not all Muslim fundamentalists are the same. Just as European socialists acted as a bulwark against Soviet communism in the twentieth century, peaceful fundamentalists such as the Tablighi Jamaat may help produce a conciliatory message and repudiate terrorist violence.” 

Really, not so hard to understand.

P.S. Political scientist Robert Pape has compiled all sorts of stats on terrorist attacks. I have some beefs with his larger conclusions. But for now, I just want to stick to one stat he compiled. Pape mapped out the home countries of men affiliated with the AQ network. And go figure, the common trait in all the countries was not a high level of fundamentalism--not all the home countries had that.  Rather it was that all the countries had big-time support from the U.S.

 

Comments

[Zathras]

Yikes, Eric. You can cite that "stat" from Pape without mentioning a fairly significant fact about the Muslim countries that did not have "big-time support" from the US -- that a lot of them were totalitarian states that only tolerated terrorists who worked for them?

Libya, the former Iraqi regime, a certain other Arab country with which you have some acquaintance -- I don't think it was these governments' principled refusal to accept American support that spared them the attentions of al Qaeda. They were just a lot tougher targets.